Fibromyalgia (pronounced fy-bro-my-AL-ja) is a common and complex chronic pain disorder that affects people physically, mentally and socially. Fibromyalgia is a syndrome characterized by chronic widespread pain, multiple tender points, abnormal pain processing, sleep disturbances, fatigue and often psychological distress. For those with severe symptoms, fibromyalgia can be extremely debilitating and interfere with basic daily activities.

What you should read Second.

What you need to know.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Depression doesn’t make you sad all the time

ne of the most popular, enduring, and irritating myths about
depression is that it means depressed people are sad all the time – and
that by extension, people who are happy can’t be experiencing
depression, even if they say they are. It is a skewed and horrible
version of depression, and it’s one that further stigmatises the
condition and isolates people with depression and related mental health
conditions. This is because, put bluntly, depression doesn’t make you
sad all the time – though the level of sadness a patient experiences can
of course vary depending on the individual and the severity of
depression.

When I’m having a depressive episode, I’m not walking around in
tattered black clothes, weeping and wailing. I go out with friends. I
crack jokes (especially sardonic ones). I keep working, and have
friendly chats with the people I work with. I often manage to feed and
clothe myself, I read books. Above all, I experience moments of
happiness: a flash of delight as I’m walking on the beach with a friend
and the sun is perfect and the breeze is just right; a surge somewhere
deep inside when I’m surrounded by beautiful trees and it’s raining and I
feel my heart swelling to encompass the whole world; a warm, friendly,
affectionate sensation at the touch of a friend, a hug at the end of an
evening or a hand placed over mine as we lean forward to see something
better.

Yet I feel a strange conflicting pressure. On the one hand, I feel
like I need to engage in a sort of relentless performative sadness to be
taken seriously, for people to understand that I really am depressed
and that each day – each moment of each day – is a struggle for me, that
even when I am happy, I am still fighting the monster. I feel like I
need to darken everything around me, to stop communicating with the
world, to stop publishing anything, to just stop. Because that way I
will appear suitably, certifiably sad, and thus, depressed – and then
maybe people will recognise that I’m depressed and perhaps they’ll even
offer support and assistance. The jokes die in my throat, the smile
never reaches my lips, I don’t share that moment of happiness on the
beach by turning to my friend and expressing joy.

I don’t, in other words, do the things that can help ameliorate
depression, encourage people to reach out, and help depressed people
with functioning, completing daily tasks of life, and finding a reason
to live again. I don’t find and build a rich community of people who can
offer support (and whom I can support in turn), because I have to be so
wrapped up in performing my sadness at all times to prove that I’m
depressed enough – even as I want to scream that this is a reinforcement
of stereotypes that hurt people, that by doing this I am hurting not
just myself but others.

On the other, I feel an extreme pressure to perform just the
opposite, because sad depressed people are boring and no fun, as I am
continually reminded every time I speak openly about depression or
express feelings of sadness and frustration. I’m caught in a trap where
if I don’t perform sadness, I’m not really depressed, but if I express
sadness at all to any degree, I’m annoying and boring and should stop
being so self-centred. Thus I’m effectively pushed into fronting,
putting a face on it even when I am depressed and deeply sad – when I
feel like I am choking on my own misery, I put up a cheeky Tweet. When I
hate myself and I want to die, I post a link to something fun, or I
write up something silly to run somewhere – even though as I write it, I
am drawn deeper and deeper into my unhappiness.

Depression is an asshole, and it can become your master, but you can
slip out from under it occasionally. And many depressed people in the
midst of an episode don’t actually spend it fainting dramatically on the
couch and talking about how miserable they are. Some are
high-functioning (bolstered by the need to put a face on it), others are
into morbid jokes, others try to reach out for help (isn’t that what
we’re “supposed” to do?) from friends and try to make their depression
less scary. Depression
isn’t an all-or-nothing deal – seeing a person who identifies with
depression cracking a joke or having fun or dancing with a friend isn’t
evidence that the person is faking it, whether the person is
experiencing a moment of genuine happiness, or fronting. Conversely,
jollying up people with depression to demand that they start being more
fun is equally revolting, a refusal to acknowledge that people
experiencing a rough day, or a rough week, or a rough few hours aren’t
going to be your trained monkeys.
Depression manifests differently in everyone and at different times.
Various behaviours are not proof positive that someone is or isn’t
depressed, and, as with any armchair diagnosis, insisting that someone
is not actually depressed just because of a show of something other than
deep, entrenched sadness is actively harmful.

Look at the woman above, joyously cycling on a beach, hair fluttering
in the breeze. You can’t judge her emotional state or her larger mental
health picture, nor should you.